Homeschooling Material for 6th Grade

This is our first year doing homeschooling – we are starting our 6th grader, while our two younger children are still in the excellent Walnut Grove public school. We are totally nervous (n00bs), and since we are homeschooling under Connecting Waters charter home school, we cannot buy entirely Christian curriculum, unless it’s on our own dime.

So we went with a Christian curriculum for 6th grade science (Earth Science / Geography), and found some decent ‘secular’ materials for Ancient Civilizations (History) written by a woman who is Christian (though the content is not explicitly Christians). She also does excellent Classical English Language materials. Here’s our list:

SCIENCE

Sonlight Science G ($250) – This program seemed more manageable than others, and directly addresses both the problems of evolution and the geological record. While my secular friends may be alarmed that I am teaching my children to question evolution (because they view it as science, rather than what it is – a flawed philosophy of science with little merit or empirical evidence), you can be sure I am teaching them the scientific method and how to reason rather than merely take the official word for it – be it young earth creationism, evolution, global warming, eugenics, or other suspicious theories.

Writing With Skill, Level 1: Student Workbook (The Complete Writer) ($24) – This is the middle school curriculum. I bought this in addition to the 4th grade book above because in middle school, Bauer changes here approach, so to some extent, it’s a new type of skill which builds on the previous a good bit, but it’s still accessible as a new subject.

Of course, in addition to good didactic texts, Sofia will be reading some great literature, and because she is bilingual, we will be buying both English and Spanish. Our list is short right now, and we are open to suggestions, and Bauer’s Well Trained Mind book has lots of suggestions. The Grade 6 Common Core Standards have a long list, but here’s what we’ve got so far:

MATH

Go Math, Grade 6 ($18) – We got this for a couple of reasons – first, the charter school we are teaching under has a class for this book, and also, while being common core compliant, it’s not as awkwardly common core” as some other textbooks. Naturally, there is an overpriced Teacher’s Edition ($80) and a Student Practice Book ($5)